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Language: en

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It is a very windy day here here in Rochester,
in the south-east of England,

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and the only place I could find to film
where my tripod wasn't getting blown over

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was sheltered here by the castle walls,

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so apologies that the background isn't
quite as picturesque as it usually is.

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I've got a story for you.

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I actually cut three whole paragraphs from
the start of my script for this.

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'Cos I was going to explain the history of
what makes a city a city in the UK,

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but honestly, it was a bit dull!

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And the actual story here is how a
local government tried to save a bit of money

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and ended up losing a status symbol
that was nearly 800 years old.

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The only thing I need to
cover first is that,

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after centuries of
changes to the rules,

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the British definition of a city now,
in the 21st century,

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is that a city is a city because
"it's on the government's list of cities".

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That's it. That's the whole definition!

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Despite what many people think,
it's got nothing to do with

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size, or power, or population, or cathedrals,
or castles, or universities, or history.

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Those might be reasons that a city
was put on the list centuries in the past,

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but these days the only rule is:

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is it on the government's list?

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And new cities get added to the
list because the Queen says so.

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Usually when there's some
big national celebration.

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Sometimes there'll be a competition
and bidding process,

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and a few dozen towns and villages
will file paperwork

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saying why they should get "city status".

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The decision's actually taken
by government ministers, of course,

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the Queen just approves it, but officially:

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the Queen says "that one!",

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and that's a city now.

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That was a really bad impression
of the Queen.

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So the people of Rochester
were quite surprised in 2002

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when they discovered that Rochester
was no longer on the list.

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It hadn't been for four years.

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And they were now just living
in a regular town, not a city.

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Not because they'd angered the Queen,
although that would have been fun,

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but apparently because someone
forgot to file some paperwork.

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Rochester had been a city
since the 13th century,

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when its cathedral was consecrated.

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And that made sense when
there was A Cathedral, and

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a small town around it,
and then countryside.

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But by the 1970s, urban expansion
had merged the string of towns

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along this bit of the Medway river.

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Strood, Rochester, Chatham:

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they were all one big conglomeration,
joined up together.

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So in 1974 as part of national reforms,
all those local governments were merged too,

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legally becoming the Borough of Medway.

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Rochester as an actual legal
Place With A Local Government...

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...was no more.

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But the Queen issued some special paperwork
called Letters Patent that said,

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yes, okay, fine, Rochester, the part
that's been a city for 800 years,

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that can still be a city.

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Which would've have been fine.

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A few years later, the local government
then petitioned to extend that city status

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to the whole borough,
calling it Rochester-upon-Medway.

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Great big city. Covers the whole area.

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And it's not tied to the
old city boundaries any more,

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it's tied to the local
government district instead.

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Which probably seemed like
a good idea at the time.

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Until 1998, when districts were
due to be merged again

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in another local government reshuffle.

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The towns of Gillingham and Rainham
were going to be connected in,

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and the whole area would legally
become known as just Medway.

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And by that time,
the rules had changed.

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To stay a city they didn't just need
a bit of paperwork from the Queen.

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The local council had to
appoint "Charter Trustees",

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a group to represent the original city.

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The cost was estimated at about £60,000.

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Exactly what happened next depends on
who you ask, and when you asked it.

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No-one seemed to notice at all
until four years after the reshuffle,

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when a local historical society
spotted that Rochester...

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wasn't on the list any more.

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In news articles back then, it was put down
to an administrative error.

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But a few years ago, one party's politicians
dug through some paperwork,

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looked through some minutes of meetings,

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and blamed the other side
for doing it as a deliberate policy.

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A Freedom of Information Request pulled
the minutes from the archives into public view

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just a few weeks ago as I record this,
and as far as I can tell they're inconclusive:

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it might be that the council
didn't understand the consequences,

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it might have been that
no-one wanted to pay for it

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and the buck kept being passed.

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Now, there's a standard rule of thumb
called Hanlon's Razor:

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never attribute to malice what can
be explained by incompetence.

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But also, those meeting minutes are written

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in exactly the sort of
kind-of-ambiguous way

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that I would write if I knew I was
making a risky decision

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and I wanted to avoid blame for it later.

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The truth is probably lost to history,

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because no-one is going to remember
what was actually said in those meetings

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more than 20 years later.

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And even if they did, they probably
won't want to take the blame now.

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And now the city status is lost.

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Rochester can't get it back.

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Because Rochester isn't really
a legally defined place any more.

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Sure, you can type the name
into a navigation app,

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you will get here.

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There are signs, you could probably
draw some borders with a bit of research.

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But there's no legal Rochester Council
who could appoint those trustees.

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There hasn't been for twenty years.

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Medway could become a city.
They've tried a few times,

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but the Queen hasn't chosen them yet.

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And Medway is not Rochester.

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Does it make any difference?

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Legally, no:
village, neighbourhood, town, city,

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none of them have any distinction
in British law any more.

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But one of those words makes the place
sound bigger and more prestigious,

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maybe being on the list would affect

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whether a place gets investment
or businesses moving to the area.

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But it looks like Rochester
will now forever be...

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well, arguably?
Not even a town.

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Just a neighbourhood of Medway.

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A very very windy
neighbourhood of Medway!

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There's a storm coming tomorrow,
it would've been worse.